A Pro Runner Figures it Out

It's a long way from Track Town USA, but Russell Brown's new apartment near Lincoln Center on Manhattan's West Side may be just what he needs to rejuvenate his running career.

For Brown, 28, the move from Eugene and the Oregon Track Club to New York to be with his fiancee, Nji Nnamani, is just another change since the Olympic trials last year. "It was a move that I was a little apprehensive about because it's such a different place, different culture, different lifestyle," Brown says. But from a running perspective, he doesn't see it as a big transition.

Coming off the U.S. championships in Des Moines, in which he made the 1500m final but failed to make the world team, Brown said in his post-race interview that he isn't ready to call it quits. Instead he is turning to coach Frank Gagliano and joining the New Jersey-New York Track Club. The bonus? He'll also be closer to his native New Hampshire home.

"I know that I'm going to something familiar," Brown says. "Not just people that I know and get along with, but a training system that I know works for me." Coach Gags has worked closely with Vin Lananna, Brown's former coach, and has a similar training philosophy.

The stars seemed to align for Brown and his move to the East Coast. Back in 2011, things didn't seem so promising.

The third semifinal of the 1500m run at the 2011 U.S. Track & Field championships went out slow. Too slow. After the first 300m was covered in a pedestrian 48 seconds, it was clear that only the top three from the heat would advance to the final. One of the four big names -- Brown, Bernard Lagat, Will Leer, Lopez Lomong -- would not be racing in Saturday's final.

Lagat took the heat in 3:44.04. Leer was second in 3:44.13, and Lomong's 3:44.27 was good enough for third. Brown crossed the line in fourth, 0.17 seconds behind Lomong. He buried his head in his hands.

In a 21-second Flotrack interview that Brown slowed for only briefly, he said, "I don't know; I gotta figure this out."

To make the Olympic team, not only did he need to place top three at the 2012 Olympic trials, he also needed the Olympic "A" Standard, which was 3:35.50 for 1500m. Brown got the "A" early, and in meets leading up to the trials he was on fire. None of his compatriots beat him, including 2011 world bronze medalist Matthew Centrowitz.

"It's as soon as you start running track, the prospect of being an Olympian is in the back of your mind," Brown says. "No matter who you are -- you can even be someone without any business making it -- but you still have this belief that you might be able to pull it off."

But 2012 wasn't Brown's time. With a tweaked Achilles heading into the trials, he made it to the 1500m semifinals, but by race time he could barely warm up. The race got out slow. The first two laps passed in 2:14. Brown bided his time in the back, hoping that something would click.

The pace crescendoed throughout the penultimate lap, and then bam, the racers took off. Brown couldn't answer. He was in last place. "I was going through impossible mental acrobatics, telling myself it's going to be OK and that it's an Olympic story," Brown says.

It wasn't a fairy-tale ending. For 11 days, Eugene was the capital of U.S. track. Then everyone left. With no more noise, Brown had to take stock of what was next. An MRI revealed a tear of the plantaris, a muscle right behind the knee. The injury took summer racing off the table.

So Brown got away from it all. He spent the summer at his family's house on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire and traveled to New York on the weekends to be with his girlfriend. Brown says he usually has running withdrawal symptoms when he is injured. But this time it didn't happen. "It felt like for a long, long time, [running] had been everything on my mind, and then it wasn't anymore," he says.

Eventually he healed and got back to training, but a lot has changed since then. And while he wasn't able to claim his spot at this year's world championships, Brown is now committed and ready to take a shot at a new training group, with a new coach, in a new place. After the U.S. championships, his plans were to go to the European track circuit, then make the Fifth Avenue Mile the end to the 2013 racing season.

Gagliano is pleased with the new addition to the NJ-NY Track Club. "We are very, very, very happy because of his experience and leadership role with all the young athletes," Gagliano says. "We look forward to training with and competing with him."

For Brown, a guy who could think luck was against him after his untimely injury in 2012, he seems upbeat, even after so many changes. "Most of the time when people make a move like this, they have to sacrifice something," he says of the move back East. "I really don't feel like I'm sacrificing anything, and that really is just kind of lucky."

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